


Gifts From the Heart

by auchterlonie



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Birthday Presents, Don't Touch Lola, Gen, Implied Slash, M/M, Red Guardian, Russia, lost loves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-10
Updated: 2013-10-10
Packaged: 2017-12-28 23:34:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/998239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auchterlonie/pseuds/auchterlonie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint Barton wants to find the perfect birthday gift for Phil Coulson this year, but he can't seem to find the right piece to add to Phil's collection of superhero memorabilia. Having been married to Alexi, the Red Guardian, Nat thinks she might have something Coulson will love and takes Clint on a trip to Russia to collect it. Unfortunately, some of Alexi's family members are less than excited to see her return. Nat and Clint will need all of their skills to survive the meeting and return with the perfect gift.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gifts From the Heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [epeeblade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/epeeblade/gifts).



> Inspired by an adorable t-shirt.  
> Special thanks to CF, an offline friend, for the beta.  
> The Red Guardian has a bit of an odd timeline in the Marvel canon. I just tried to simplify it a bit here. I apologize in advance if its overly-simplified.  
> Also, the Russian words in this story comes courtesy of Google, so I hope they are accurate. I apologize if they are not.
> 
> I rated this teen and up for some foul language and a little gun play.

It would have been so much easier if Phil liked nice, normal things.

Of all the things in the world for him to collect, he had to choose superhero memorabilia. Not just any memorabilia, like the action figures or t-shirts of a normal person’s collection, either. There was a whole ‘Cap Lives!’ product line on Etsy.com that Clint could have plundered if that had been the case. No. Phil collected real things. He had the first walkie-talkie wrist watch, the first ray gun, antique X-ray specs, a pair of well-worn bullet-proof bracelets… and of course, Lola. Phil collected all the odds and ends of superhero history that S.H.I.E.L.D. hadn’t classified.

He was ‘preserving history,’ he liked to say, along with things like ‘they had an elegance back then,’ though Clint knew that was a bit of a cover. The fact was Phil was a tremendous geek who desperately wanted to run around playing with his toys. It was one of the things Clint loved so much about him. Phil had never really grown up and when he talked about his toys – his ‘collectibles,’ Clint corrected in his head – his eyes lit up with excitement as his imagination carried him off to exotic lands where he could save the world from mad scientists and super villains.

It was amazingly adorable and it was why Clint had flown to Moscow to pick up an old Red Guardian throwing disc. Phil’s birthday was coming up and Clint knew he’d love it.

Unfortunately, Clint hadn’t anticipated there would be quite a lot of interest in the item.

“Seriously, Nat. I could really use you down here,” Clint calmly spoke into his comm while ducking behind some hay bales to dodge a flurry of bullets.

“Well, I’m kind of saving your ass over here, at the moment. Can’t you take care of yourself for a minute?” she replied, background gunfire coming through her comm as well.

Clint rose and fired a few arrows at the gunmen who were quickly surrounding him. One of them got in a lucky shot before the arrow struck him. Clint looked down to see where the bullet had grazed his arm.

“Well, they’re _your_ in-laws. Can’t you talk to them or something?”

Nat didn’t respond. Clint only heard the grunts and gunfire of her fighting off a larger force. He loaded a group of arrows and stood to fire but saw that three anti-tank, multi-barreled weapons that had been aimed at him. He released the tension on his bow line and raised his hands. He shook his head just a little.

Why couldn’t Phil collect nice, normal things?

***

24 Hours Earlier.

“Hey Nat?” Clint called out from the couch. He was shirtless and in dirty jeans, with his bare feet propped up on the glass coffee table. Nat couldn’t say if he’d showered in the last 48 hours, but with the way his hair was stuck up in a number of different directions, she kind of doubted it.

Nat moved an old pizza box off the counter to get to the coffee maker. She wrinkled her nose as she caught a whiff of some foul smell she didn’t want to identify.

“Is this how you live now?”

“What?” he asked with a look of confusion.

“This is disgusting. You’re going to have to clean this place up.”

He looked back down at the laptop on his knees and ran his fingers through his hair. “I will.”

She found the grounds and started brewing a pot of coffee and then started a quest to find clean mugs.  “Clint, he’s only been gone two months. How could you devolve into this level of bachelorhood in that short a period of time?”

“Short a period of time? He’s been gone two whole months,” he replied. “That’s like… ages.”

Nat rolled her eyes and thanked God Coulson was only off with his new team. If he’d joined the navy or something, she’d probably have had to submit Clint’s application to ‘Hoarders.’ She poured some coffee, walked over to Clint and kicked his feet off the table.

“You’re a mess. Go get yourself cleaned up and then we’re getting out of here.”

He looked up at her and her coffee. “You didn’t make me any?”

“You can have some when you put a shirt on.”

He looked back down at the laptop and refreshed his screen. “I can’t right now. I’m in a fight with a guy on Ebay and there’s only a minute left.”

Nat rolled her eyes, again, and slammed his laptop closed.

“Hey! That was a button from the Winter Soldier’s original uniform! It was in mint condition and everything!” Clint sat straight up and started scrambling to get back to the page.

“… And now I’ve lost it. Thanks so much,” he said, putting the laptop on the table and pouting.

Nat stared at him. “What is wrong with you?”

He looked up at her and sheepishly shook his head. “Sorry. It’s just that Phil’s coming home for his birthday in a few days and I still haven’t gotten him anything.”

“How about a clean house and a boyfriend who doesn’t smell like he works on a dock. I bet he’d like that.”

“Ha ha, Nat,” Clint said getting up and moving towards the coffee. He picked a crumpled t-shirt off the floor on his way and slipped it on. “I want to get him something good this year, show him that I miss him. But the only things he collects are these superhero things that you just can’t find anywhere. I mean, how am I supposed to compete with Lola?”

“Seriously, Clint? You think you’re competing with a car?”

He looked up at her with a very serious face. “It’s a really pretty car.”

“And I’m sure there is a really pretty man under all the grime over there.”

He cocked his head. “Nat. Point taken, alright?”

She smiled and walked back over to him. “You really mean this, don’t you? You really want to impress him?” He nodded his head in reply and she took a bit of pity on him. The state of Clint’s apartment was proof enough that Coulson’s absence was weighing on him. She knew what that felt like, though she was loath to admit it. She remembered the days of waiting for Alexi to return home. She remembered the loneliness and the worry.

“How about I make you a deal? You clean this place up and I will help you find the perfect gift.”

Clint’s face instantly brightened. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. But clean yourself up, too. I am not sitting next to you while you smell like that.”

***

Nat rarely spoke about Alexi and Clint was probably the only one to whom she’d spoken willingly about him. Clint suspected it was only partly because she was such a secretive person. He suspected it was also partly because Alexi was from a time of her life when she’d been the happiest. Sadly, it had also been a time when she learned just how quickly happiness could turn into something else.

Clint knew that Alexi had been the ideal Russian husband. He was handsome, intelligent, and recently selected to the Cosmonaut corps. Nat had married him while still posing as a ballerina for the Bolshoi. They’d been introduced by a high ranking official and knew they’d been ‘selected’ to be together, but they had bonded rather quickly. They’d shared similar upbringings, ideals, and even senses of humor. When he was killed in a training accident, Clint suspected she’d let a piece of herself go with him.

The Cold War had, in theory, been long over at that point, but that was not the way the clandestine world had viewed it. As it raged its bitter, secret wars, Nat had lost a sense of why she was fighting. A mission to eliminate the American spy, Clint Barton - who coincidentally, had a parallel mission – had proved her last. Clint had understood her and had given her both a reason and an opportunity to defect. As they ran, Alexi had revealed himself to not only still be alive, but to be the Red Guardian, Russia’s answer to Captain America. He had saved her and Clint from an ambush and helped get them back to Coulson before dying from the wounds he’d taken saving them.

Clint knew it had had a profound effect on her. They spoke often enough about it and about the debt she still saw in her ‘ledger.’ Clint and Coulson gave her a new life and she’d been loyal to them ever since, but Clint knew she still longed for the lost opportunity of a happy life with Alexi. When she spoke about him, Clint knew to listen.

“When Alexi was a boy, he used to go fishing with his grandfather in the far North. When he got older, he built a small place there and we would sneak away from time to time. It was years before I travelled back there and realized no one else must have known about it. So, now it’s my place. I kept a few of his things and I think there’ll be something that Coulson will love.”

“Thanks, Nat. That’s really nice of you.”

She shrugged like it was nothing special, but he knew better and wanted to make sure she knew it too.

Russia was a difficult place for her to return to. Emotions aside, there were still many old enemies with axes to grind. Nat really shouldn’t have traveled back as often as she did, but as a master spy, Clint knew she loved the game of it. Clint loved the game of it, too though, so they made their plans and left.

They landed in St. Petersburg and rented a truck. It was a long drive North and Clint thought he’d pass the time flipping through radio channels. He was enjoying some Russian pop when Nat flipped the station over to classical. From the look she gave him, he decided not to complain. Instead, he thought about what it must be like for her to come back here.

“Do you miss it, Nat?”

“What?”

“The ballet.”

“No,” she said firmly. “It was a great training experience, but I don’t miss it.”

Clint chuckled. “Training experience? Yeah, for all the pirouettes we do on missions.”

She continued to stare straight ahead. “It taught me how to eliminate my enemies without getting dirty.”

Clint remembered the movie _Black Swan_ and quit chuckling. They rode the rest of the way in silence and he fell asleep at some point.

***

Nat brought the truck to a stop a little harder than she probably needed to. Clint had fallen asleep with his face pressed against the window and the condensation let him slide all the way into the dashboard. He grunted and snapped awake, instinct causing him to reach for his knife. After a second, he looked at her.

“We’re here,” she said with a mischievous smile.

Clint dried the side of his face and followed her up the drive to a small cabin. It looked quaint and homey and exactly suited to its purpose as a quiet lover’s retreat. It was built high off the ground to protect against the heavy snow that must fall there, so it had a fantastic view of the nearby lake. Clint paused for a moment and looked out at the peaceful scene. He took a deep breath of crisp, clean air and couldn’t help but smile.

“I can see why you love it here,” he said after a moment. Nat turned to look as well and Clint could see her shoulders visibly tense.

“Yeah, there are a lot of good memories here.”

She led Clint inside. The cabin was minimally furnished but there were enough odds and ends to suggest that someone occasionally still lived there, though the heavy layer of dust made clear just how occasionally that was. There was fishing gear stored near the front door, a cobalt net tea set on a shelf, and several small, lacquered boxes positioned around the room. Clint opened one and saw throwing stars. Definitely Nat’s place, he thought.

Nat had gone straight to the kitchen and pried up a few floorboards with quick flicks of her knife. She pulled out a large metal box.  She pulled out an unopened bottle of vodka, some photos, passports, money, a gun… and then finally, a belt and a small velvet pouch. She held it very gently, letting her thumb rub slowly across its surface, before opening it and pulling out a small disc with a yellow hammer and sickle design painted on it.

“Here,” she said, handing it to Clint. “This was one of Alexi’s throwing discs. I think Coulson will love it.”

Clint took it but shook his head. “Nat, no. I couldn’t. This is too personal.”

She shook her head in response and started repacking the box. “It’s fine. I buried Alexi a long time ago and it’s better that this goes to someone like Coulson than just leaving it here to rot. Besides,” she said picking up the vodka and a few photos, “I got what I came for.”

She stashed the box, replaced the floorboards, and started to leave.

“Whoa, Nat. That’s it? You don’t want to like, look around or anything?”

“No,” she called back over her shoulder. She was already half way to the truck.

Clint watched her go and started to realize this was a lot more difficult of a trip for her than he had guessed. He pocketed the disc and appreciated it even more.

***

They rode in silence but as it was getting late and dark, Clint suggested they stop and find a place to sleep. She eventually relented and pulled off the road, following signs towards a small B&B. Clint guessed the old lady running the place had assumed they were married and given them a single room with a single bed. Nat wasn’t fazed by it and flopped right down. She was asleep within minutes.

Clint stowed their bags and took a peak out the window. It was too dark to see much, but he could make out a barn and another out building in the moonlight. It was another quaint scene and Clint found he was really starting to enjoy this trip to Russia. All his previous trips had been for missions and this was the first time he’d gotten a chance to look it from another perspective.

A few snowflakes were beginning to fall and he watched them dance on the wind. He pulled the disc from his pocket and started absentmindedly twirling it in his fingers. Nat was right; Phil was going to love it. It seemed amazing to Clint that she’d been willing to part with it. He thought some more about the cabin and wondered what Nat and Alexi must have been like when they were young and in love. He could bet she’d looked forward to each and every chance to sneak away to that cabin.

He looked over at her then, curled up in a tight ball on the bed. For a moment, he wished her life could have been different – happier - but then realized that if it had, they’d never have met and the world would have been a very different place. Sometimes, he thought, you had to be thankful for even the bad things that happened.

The roll of headlights against the window caught his attention and he peeked back out through the curtains to look. A pair of black SUVs had rolled up alongside the barn and some more headlights shining from the front of the building suggested they hadn’t come alone. Clint thought it was a pretty small B&B to warrant that kind of popularity.

“Hey Nat?” he called out cautiously.

“Shuddup…” she called back, her tired, slurred words muffled by the pillow.  

Five goons got out of each of the SUVs and Clint saw the familiar glint of a holstered gun struck by moonlight.

“Oh boy… Nat. Time to wake up. We’ve got goons,” he said, moving quickly to his bag.

Nat snapped awake. “What do you mean, ‘goons?’”

“I mean, dudes with guns.” He snapped his collapsible bow open and started strapping on the quiver and his holstered knives. Nat had a pistol in her hand that she’d hidden… somewhere… and moved to the window to look for herself. She cursed under her breath in Russian.

“I knew that old lady was eyeing me.”

“The old lady? You think she recognized you?”

Nat had moved to her bag and pulled a series of weapons. She strapped them to her body and moved to open the door.

The old lady sat in a rocking chair she’d positioned directly in front of their door. She leveled her shotgun as Nat opened the door.

“предатель!” she called out.

Nat slammed the door closed and dove back, knocking Clint to the ground. The shotgun blast ripped through the door and buckshot scattered over their heads.

“Yeah, I’m going to guess so.”

“How? We’re in the middle of nowhere and that was, like, a really long time ago,” he called out, scrambling to get back towards the window. He looked out and saw the goons were scrambling too, positioning themselves after the sound of the shotgun. He broke the window and fired a quick pair of arrows to get the closer goons to duck for cover.

The old lady pushed open the door and Nat kicked it shut again, sending the lady spinning back towards her chair.

“Dude, Nat. She’s still an old lady. Don’t kill her.”

Another shotgun blast ripped through the door, making a hole large enough for Clint to look out and see her begin to reload. Nat turned to look at him with a cold glare.

He shrugged sheepishly. “I didn’t say don’t stop her, just you know, don’t kill her. She’s someone’s grandma.”

Nat shook her head at him and walked calmly out into the hallway. She stripped the shotgun from the old lady and bundled her out of her chair. They shuffled off down the hall and Clint heard the old lady curse at her the whole way. He heard a door slam shut and then Nat was back.

“She’s fine, alright?” she said, walking through the door and cocking the shotgun. “And I know whose grandmother she is.”

She held up a framed photo of Alexi in his cosmonaut uniform.

“Oh, you have _got_ to be kidding me.”

A flurry of bullets spread up at them from the ground below and they could hear the goons rapidly running up the stairs towards them.

Nat fired the shotgun down the stairwell and joined Clint at the window. He fired a few more arrows and watched goons scramble back towards their cars for cover.

“This is your fault,” she said matter-of-factly. “You just had to stop for a rest.” She fired a few more rounds into the hall.

“Hey, don’t blame me. How was I supposed to know the one available room in the middle of nowhere was run by your in-laws? And why didn’t you recognize her when we got the room?” He fired a few more arrows towards the cars and ducked as automatic fire strafed the window.

“Well, I didn’t exactly spend a lot of time with his family. But how about we go meet them now? You take the ones in the back.” Then she charged into the hall and Clint heard the all too familiar sounds of hand to hand combat.

Clint launched an explosives laden arrow into each of the SUVs and watched their engines explode. It lit up the space so Clint could see where all of the goons were taking cover. He popped out the rest of the window and scrambled out. He climbed up onto the roof and ran along it, firing arrows as he went to either immobilize the goons or keep them ducking. He really didn’t want to kill anyone over an old family grudge, but he couldn’t have them keep firing either. He tried to aim for their weapons wherever possible, but quickly started to realize just how heavily armed these guys really were. One goon pulled out a rocket launcher and aimed it at the roof.

“Jesus!” Clint fired an arrow into him before the goon could fire. He took another step and automatic fire came ripping up through the roof, missing him by a foot.

“Nat, are you alright?” he called on the comm.

“I’m fine,” she replied as another spray of bullets ripped up at him. He danced away from it and decided to get off the roof. He jumped off, rolled, and sprinted for the barn.

“Who the hell are these guys, Nat? Did you marry into the Spetsnaz? Why do they have rocket launchers?!”

It took her a moment to respond. Another spray of gunfire seemed to cut off and be replaced with the sound of muffled choking. “They uh… became private businessmen after the fall.”

Clint couldn’t help but chuckle to himself. He didn’t think he’d ever complain about his dysfunctional family in front of her again.

He got to the barn and found cover behind the hay bales. He fired a few more arrows and was just figuring there should only be a few goons left, when he watched another pair of SUVs roll onto the property. Heavily armed goons quickly swarmed the barn.

“Uh… Nat? I think I could really use you down here.”

The barn lit up with gunfire and Clint hit the deck. He crawled along the floor and got behind an old, heavy beam. He stood to fire and immediately thought better of it as bullets sprayed his position.

“Seriously, Nat. I could really use you down here,” Clint calmly spoke into his comm while ducking back behind the hay bales.

“Well, I’m kind of saving your ass over here, at the moment. Can’t you take care of yourself for a minute?” she replied, background gunfire coming through her comm as well.

Clint rose and fired a few arrows at the gunmen who were quickly surrounding him. One of them got in a lucky shot before the arrow hit him. Clint looked down to see where the bullet had grazed his arm.

“Well, they’re _your_ in-laws. Can’t you talk to them or something?”

Nat didn’t respond. Clint only heard the grunts and gunfire of her fighting off a larger force. He loaded a group of arrows and stood to fire but saw that three anti-tank, multi-barreled weapons that had been aimed at him. He released the tension on his bow line and raised his hands. He shook his head just a little.

***

They led him out and had him kneel on the ground in front of the barn. Several rifles kept him sitting still as he looked up at the now eerily quiet house. The goon’s leader, an older man with salt-and-pepper hair walked forward and called out to the house.

“If you want your little friend to see the dawn, Talia, you’ll come out and face us.”

He was answered by silence and Clint smiled to himself as he tried to guess where Nat was. She could be stalking them, destroying vehicles, building ambushes… whatever it was, Clint was pretty sure she wasn’t sitting inside worrying about him. Clint figured these guys might remember ‘Talia,’ but he was pretty sure they’d never met the Black Widow.

Or else they wouldn’t have positioned themselves in such vulnerable ways.

Clint thought he heard a muffled footstep in the new snow behind him. As casually as he could, he lowered his head and looked back over his shoulder to see that two of the goons were no longer standing near the barn. He turned back to look at the house and didn’t react when he thought he heard another pair of footsteps from behind his other shoulder. Nat was making quick work of this and by Clint’s count, only the four goons immediately surrounding him remained in play.

“Natalia! Come out here!” the lead goon shouted, walking back to Clint’s side and placing a gun to his head.

Suddenly, Clint felt the throwing disc tug sharply against his jean pocket. It startled him and it was everything he could do not to flinch and have a mad Russian put a bullet through his brain. The disc was tugging fiercely and Clint suddenly remembered that the Red Guardian had used a magnetic device on his belt to recall his disc every time he threw it. Nat must have the belt and be recalling it now.

Very carefully, Clint wiggled and positioned his hips to just the right angle against the pull. When the disc finally tore through his pocket, it tore through the goon’s knee as well, and went soaring across the yard. Clint used the distraction and launched himself up and against one of the other goons. He knocked him down and stripped the gun as the throwing disc came flying back and through another goon’s arm. Clint stripped the rifle from the one he’d tackled and brought it up against the head of the last goon, knocking him unconscious. He spun back around and held the rifle on the group, just in case anyone still wanted to fight.

Nat recalled the disc to the Red Guardian’s belt slung across her hips and came walking calmly towards them from the out building. She took in the scene in a single glance and moved to stand over the leader. He was holding his knee and cursing at her in Russian. She knelt down and looked him in the eye.

“I am sorry, Borya,” she said simply.

He looked at her belt and cursed her again. “How dare you wear that. He is dead because of you.”

“He’s dead because he fought to get me away from people like you.”

Borya spat at her. “No, you tricked him, you bitch. You betrayed my brother and convinced him to throw everything away.”

“No Borya, he convinced me,” she said quietly. She stood up and looked down at the injured man. “He showed me what was worth fighting for. I owe him everything.”

“That you live dishonors his memory.”

“That I live to fight people like you honors his memory.” She turned to look at Clint. “Watch them for a moment - I have one more thing I need to do.”

She turned away and walked slowly towards the house. Clint gave her a few moments before going inside, looking back at the goons to make sure no one would follow them.

She stood at the top of the landing, holding Alexi’s framed photograph. She must have gone back into their rooms because she had their bags at her feet. She set the frame carefully back up on a shelf and reached down to grab the vodka from her bag. Without taking her eyes from Alexi’s, she opened the bottle and raised it towards him.

“С днём рожденья, моя любовь,” she said before taking a drink. Then she set the bottle on the shelf as well, picked up their bags, and started walking towards the truck.

They drove off and after a few moments, he got the courage to ask her a question.

“What did you say back there, Nat? To Alexi, I mean?”

The moonlight let him just make out the wetness in her eyes. “Nothing,” she said firmly. He decided not to press further.

***

Clint’s apartment was immaculately clean when they returned. He’d gone all out to make sure it was perfect. He’d even used some Febreze. Nat smiled as she looked around.

“Well done, Clint. It’s like a whole new place.”

“Yeah, well,” he started, running his hand through his hair to mask a little bit of embarrassment. “I mean you were right. And I took your offer pretty seriously. Really, Nat. Thanks for everything. The trip was… fun.”

She smiled back at him. “Yes, it was a good trip, wasn’t it?” She walked towards him and held out the throwing disc and retriever. “Here, Coulson will love these.”

Clint shook his head and refused to take them. “No, Nat. I can’t. I won’t. You should keep them.”

“Clint…” she started to protest, but he held his ground.

“No, Nat. I’m serious. These are pretty bad ass. Think of all the things you can do with them.”

She smiled and started to shake her head, but he walked over and reached out to close her fingers over the disc. “Don’t give him up just yet. Use the disc. I think Alexi would love that.”

She looked up at him with a vulnerable look he’d rarely, if ever, seen. After a moment, she nodded.

“Then what will you get Coulson?”

Clint shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe I’ll just take him to dinner or something.”

She held his look as she seemed to consider something. Then she reached into her pocket and pulled out the key to the cabin.

“Here,” she said, handing them to Clint. “Give him this.”

“Your cabin?”

“Your cabin,” she said firmly. “There’s nothing left there of mine except old memories. I think it’s time some new ones were made.” She squeezed the disc a little tighter in her hand. “I think Alexi would love that, too.”

*******


End file.
